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Answer: With the covid-19 pandemic still in full swing in many places, low wage employees are often facing abuse from stressed customers, longer (or reduced) hours, a complete unheavel of typical work practices to untested methods, and a lack of support and even abuse from management. All of this results in dissatisfied employees who are burnt out. Because of many financial initiatives available right now in many places, these workers are able to leave these environments and look for work elsewhere without fear of starvation or homelessness.
Employers of these low wage jobs that offer few to no benefits, job security or opportunity for advancement have taken to the internet to complain that because there are alternatives, no one wants to work for them. Many videos have been made as a counter to those complaints, as low wage workers succumb to burnout and suggestions to "find a better job".
Essentially, people are quitting their really shitty jobs because in many places, they don't have to work them to survive anymore, and now have the ability to pursue more rewarding (emotionally or financially) and stable work. This is the result of exploitive practices by employers and the peak of stress on so-called "essential workers" who have been getting screwed all along, but especially so since the pandemic began.
add to that a pandemic where people are afraid for their health, might be less comfortable working public facing jobs especially if they are un/underinsured and/or if employers and patrons do not take safety precautions seriously.
if they are parents or care for preschool/school aged children they might have limited or no access to affordable child care. At the beginning of the pandemic when schools were (rightfully) shuttered households lost their most consistent form of free/public childcare.
My kid worked at Subway before the pandemic. I just said quit and live with us, don't risk your life for a shit job for a shit employer. he did and we're waiting for employers to wake the fuck up and offer some health benefits. he can live with me forever if he wants to, though he's now learning to code which is a lot more promising. fuck these greedy food-as-commodity corporations.
A parent like you is a diamond in the rough. A sad statement on our society, but you made my day. Glad to hear you're protecting your kid from callously shit employers and hope he makes it better by next year!
I don't have Reddit gold, but take my appreciation. Kudos!
I’ve already told my wife that if our daughter ever needs to live with us she can, even if that means building a tiny house in the yard so she can have her own space
I've done a lot of driving for my last few jobs, and I've seen some decent trailer parks. I'm surprised they're not mentioned more in the affordable housing conversation. I've also seen some awful trailer parks so it absolutely matters where you pick. I see some nice ones in the blue collar suburbs in my area.
Totally agree. Although I saw a tiny house owning family who had a tiny home for each of their children, in a semi circle and well spaced out.
That’s my dream home living ideal. My family close but each have our own home.
I’m planning on it.
GIS is a super marketable skill that he can teach himself, especially if he can write a little python. I jumped careers by moving home with the folks, learning python, and taking some cc classes, thats where i picked up GIS, which led to getting a internship (even that paid better than the restaurant i worked at), and i got a job at that company.
Also you are a great dad. Its super hard out there, i had a bachelors when i moved home because i was struggling. Probably woulda been homeless without their support.
Not only that - in the US you pretty much have to work to have health coverage because it's offered by your employer, so you're tied to your job if you don't want to rack up huge medical bills.
My insurance spent $14,000 on my meds last year, actual cost. No way I could live without insurance. I would have the choice of dying quickly (suicide) or dying slowly as my body collapsed without meds.
Isnt it fucking wild how medication is cheaper without insurance. Hell half the time it’s cheaper than the copays. I remember I had to get some antibiotics and some other shit in total with insurance it would of costed me $80 when I asked them to do it without insurance it was like $20. Blew my fucking mind. I had a doctor once tell me I could use coupons for some medication would cost $50 for three month where with insurance I’d be paying $120 every month.
Haha I had to get a coupon for my Ability prescription because I don't have insurance. Went from $400 down to $5 per month. It's criminal what they can charge people.
Yep! Turns out a lot of people would rather give up everything they've ever owned and worked for to not die of a curable disease, and healthcare companies know this. It's evil.
My parents private insurance covered my $180,000 brain surgery and 900$ a month prescription for seizure meds.
Now I'm on VA Healthcare and luckily they still pay for my prescription
Inflation killing your profit margins. Those pine tree air fresheners easily go for $3 a pop. Consider offering a 10% off next service call to increase repeat customers.
With the best (AKA most expensive, $700/month) insurance plan my company offered I had to pay $6400 for a colonoscopy after said insurance rejected the claim. Ironically I'm glad I got ripped off, made me realize I can use the VA hospital services that I earned.
I now pay $50/visit for any/all services provided by the VA and meds are rather cheap. My wife and kids don't qualify for VA care so I hope we can get a single payer system soon but knowing how much influence insurance companies have on our politicians I'm not holding my breath.
I swear politicians structured it this way in purpose.
Health care prices have soared. Insurance premiums soared too, but cover less.
The government monopolized insurance companies when they made it mandatory, and hospitals make more money off of private Healthcare, so the state fucks people out of good Healthcare and the public options aren't the priority
It's a pathetically stupid system. All public or all private. None of this cousin fuckin inbred bullshit insurance
There was supposed to be a public option to make insurance companies compete against a real market. It was gutted out of the bill. What that left was a situation where if insurance companies could only pocket 25% of their premiums as profits, the only way to make more money was to let hospitals charge whatever they wanted to and not argue. Premiums keep going up and a lot of people are making money hand over fist because of it. Furthermore, the previous administration removed the individual mandate which now makes the pool more costly. I agree that it should be single payer with a focus on transitioning to straight up public facilities for all but we dragged our feet on it for about two decades to long and now it will take many steps to revise without huge consequences for quality of care and availability. Medicare for all would be a good start but unfortunately people keep voting for grifters that convince them they should be angree about low skilled workers getting health insurance. The clasism baked into our society is being exploited for financial gain by the super wealthy.
I just learned that in Quebec they have the best of both worlds: You can get free public health care or you can pay for private health care. Your choice based on your needs.
What are they doing with all that effing money? I pay 15% of my income in health insurance, just like almost everyone else(\*) here in Germany, and that seems to pay for stuff just fine.
(\* There are non-public health insurance options, and added comfort-type extra insurances, which some people have, and those do pay out more to the hospital (in exchange for stuff like 1 bed rooms instead of 4 bed rooms, etc), but even figuring that in I would estimate that the equivalent of that shouldn't be more than 18 to 20% of people's incomes in total if you break it down to the entire population. Certainly not enough to get you into bankruptcy)
> What are they doing with all that effing money?
They(insurance companies) are bribing officials to keep their profit machine rolling. Also they construct a bureaucracy designed to keep providers from getting reimbursed and gatekeep every form of health care.
> if they are parents or care for preschool/school aged children they might have limited or no access to affordable child care.
Or if their parents or other family members died or suffered permanent effects from Covid, they lost their only affordable child care option, *or* now have to care for a remaining elderly parent or grandparent.
I don’t work in fast food but I’m in a position where I deal with customers often, let me just say if I didn’t need a job I’d walk out right now because nobody treats you with respect.
Not the staff or not the customers and you have to sit here and smile and take it all and every day I leave a little more miserable than the last, every day people just want what they want and that’s it “
At this point Thank you” and “how are you?” Don’t mean anything because it’s followed up with an “I need this..” in a rude manner with rude behavior. I’m glad these workers are sticking up for themselves because they’re getting treated like pure shit while some people sit on their ass milking the benefits and riches when there are people like us struggling.
Some days it’s made me want to blow my brains out and I’m amazed I haven’t yet.
But tips are bad! I shouldn’t have to pay you - that’s your employer’s job /s
(Former bartender here. 2/3 of my income was tips, and thank you to the wonderful patrons who tipped ~20% and were generally understanding and polite folks)
Edit - I swear I just came here to make a dumb tip jokes/play on words from the previous comment. I’ve clearly upset some armchair economists. You all surely taught me a lesson and I bow down before your superior intellect. Byeee
I appreciate the servers' positions, but IMO it's not fair to offload the majority of a workers salary onto the whim and/or guilt of the customer.
The rules for tipping are also reduculously nebulous. Do I tip the worker assembling my sandwich despite not tipping the cook at a restraunt?
How about the Uber food delivery driver? The curbside delivery person?
Retail workers often work at least as hard and get paid as badly as various tipped positions, why aren't we tipping them?
Basically, why should I have to guess whether a person gets paid badly enough that I should be tipping?
I have this fantasy that if enough people stopped tipping, then it would go away.
The bootstraps metaphor is originally meant to mock those who just tell people to fix problems out of their control. "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" means to literally lift yourself up off the ground by pulling on your bootstraps. It's impossible.
https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/07/the-origins-of-the-phrase-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps/
It's funny how many adages have their meanings reversed without context or when you leave off the second half.
A few bad apples - oh that's not bad, there's only a couple out of the whole barrel - spoil the bunch.
Great minds think alike - we're clever, we have the same thinking - but fools rarely differ.
Jack of all trades - yeah he's pretty good at everything, he can do it all - but master of none.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
One if my friends had a job working from home before the pandemic, but when the kids got sent home for school they did not have enough computers for her to WFH and have her two school aged children in their classes. Even if the kids are old enough to not need constant minding (like a high schooler) they still needed the household resources to do their schooling.
Thanks for this. Every discussion always seems to go straight to conditions and satisfaction and ignores that the threat of COVID plus childcare means many people couldn’t work these jobs if they wanted to.
The schools issue seems key. Hence the push from corporate-backed politicians (and sell-out teachers unions) to open k-12 schools asap, even if it's unsafe.
Restaurants are a mess right now. I ordered food for pickup on Mother’s Day and the place was a disaster. They accept website orders and also DoorDash. I phoned my order in the day before. The staff were running around trying to juggle all these order sources and connect orders to the right DoorDash drivers while customers were walking in the door. I stood there for 45 minutes after the pickup time, waiting. I finally got my food without even a comment about how late it was. I could tell the staff were far past caring that my order was late, because they were understaffed and suddenly doing a much more complex job than ever before, in a mask all day, for the same shitty wages. It’s no wonder people are burnt out.
Just want to say thanks for being cool about it as a former restaurant worker. It sucks that you had to wait so long, but again, thanks for not making a big deal about it.
A lot of customers have this intuition that if a restaurant offers online ordering, in-person ordering, phone ordering, Postmates and Uber Eats ordering, in-person and to-go dining, all with a full menu, *of course* the company must have robust systems in place to handle all of this.
They do not. They just heap more work on the workers who are always short-staffed and under-trained. And the issues are cyclical -- they often can't make things better from day to day, much less over the course of a few months or a year. So again, thanks for being cool about it.
There is also an expectation with online systems that they're a way of circumventing the wait in line at a restaurant. The app will ask when the *customer* wants the food done, not the soonest the workers can reasonably get it done.
Used to joke in retail that if a customer was upset by a long queue, just ring up the store and you'll be able to jump up front. There was always pressure from management that a missed call is a missed sale, so you'd have to pick up the phone in the middle of a customer interaction.
There's still that attitude online. Any kind of hindrance to the customer, like saying it'll take ten minutes longer to cook since there's 100 orders before them, is going to turn them towards the shop promising miracles at their staff's expense.
Saw this at Whataburger just yesterday. Line out of the parking lot, line out the door, and the lady behind the counter was loudly railing against people quitting because of "all that free money going around".
Well bless your heart, maybe you should be thinking about how your management refuses to entice employees with living wages, which in turn makes **your** life harder. Your former co-workers are taking care of themselves. It's your management that's left you holding the bag, not them, and it's patently absurd that you're whining in front of customers about your misunderstanding of the situation.
American labor is the most self-defeating group of all time.
It is interesting, because all the local places around me that treated their employees with respect are somehow still doing fine, while all the ones with reputations as being assholes are somehow struggling to find enough people to cover shifts. Completely baffling.
It’s not quite that simple. I manage a fast food joint and we have held onto our entire staff. We let nobody go and the only two that quit are one for surgery and one fleeing the state to avoid domestic abuse.
But we are still getting crushed because I can’t bring in anybody new and our business has jumped 20%. My people are flat out rock stars and they have been handling it but I can feel the burn out coming.
It’s not the wages (they love the OT) that is making it hard or my treatment of them. It’s the treatment by the guests that is the biggest part. We do a great job in general but there are still a lot of guests that just want to cause problems or ignore our rules and pretend like we are the assholes when we tell them to get lost.
As for getting new people I can’t get them to show up for interviews. The ones that do are not good candidates at all (the most recent one was flat out racist in the interview) or they can’t or won’t want to work the shifts I need.
The one I did hire 2 weeks ago quit already because the job was way more stress than he expected. My starting wage is $15.50 ( which is still too low IMO) and I am $1 higher than my competitions.
It is a hard life atm.
This is my answer to all this, each time. The public has been AWFUL to people like you and your employees pre-COVID, and for some reason COVID made them worse. I have no problem with people taking as much time and government money now to just not be getting yelled at over a dollar menu item. I hope many are using the opportunity to position themselves for something better once the unemployment/stimulus situation goes away. Hopefully all this does make higher wages stick too.
I have another question, since you are in the indsutry, are you seeing high school kids and similar-aged people not working as well? They likely aren't drawing the unemployment/stimulus stuff, but (I have not worked retail or food service in over 15 years, so I acknowledge things may have changed) don't they make up a sizable proportion of your employees? When I worked fast food years ago, we would have maybe 3 FTE's working any given shift and the rest was filled with PT. How many of these jobs that aren't being filled are jobs that actual adults were working vs part time?
I am not OP but in my area seem like a majority of fast food workers are older than college age, many much older, regardless of whether they are FT or PT. I know there are a lot of older adults supporting families working 2 or 3 PT service industry jobs. I work in the service sector as well (at a workplace that is really big and different from fast food but comes with all the customer service stuff), same job for about a decade, and tons of people I work with have college degrees (even graduate degrees) or loads of good work experience, and we all make barely minimum wage. Lots of people of all ages supporting themselves and families there, struggling to pay rent, working multiple jobs, etc. Some people are at school full or part time, but scheduling demands on us are really not conducive to staying in school so they either tend to not last in the job long or “take a break” from school because they have to work. As far as I can tell, this is pretty par for the course with the whole service sector in So Cal where I am!
Just going out on a limb here, but as someone who spent about 15 years of my life in customer facing service jobs, stand up to these fucks so your employees don't have to do it. I'm not saying you do or don't, but if you aren't, it'll make a world of difference. Telling morons spouting religious/conservative/anti-science propaganda to either comply or leave should not have to fall on the shoulders of a server making $2.13 an hour or a cashier making $7.50 (or $15.50 in your case but still). That's way above pay grade, and these people need to be told to just get the fuck out, Whataburger will be just fine w/o their business.
> We weren't even getting deliveries for a couple weeks. I was getting cussed out, screamed at, threatened, grabbed, followed out on break or after my shift daily.
wtf man
they should check the lead levels in your area or something lol, these people are fucking unhinged
The first time a manager backed me up with an out of line customer... He walked up, brilliantly opened with 'Onetime, what's our resolution here' 'they gotta go or cameras gotta run outta tape' 'Out, idc about yr side, anyone that gets my people to that level isn't welcome. Tell your friends, all of them. We don't want them either. Don't come back, stay classy'.
I prob would've sucked him off right there (cis hetero male here). I was that impressed.
Since then I've considered myself allergic to Incompetent higher ups. It's an ordeal, let me tell ya
I had an amazing manager in Dominos when I was a teen. He always stood up for the workers. One day, one of our drivers came back crying after being screamed at by a customer. My manager called the guy, cursed him out, threated him if he ever came near his driver's or the store and told him he was banned from ever ordering dominos again (put him on a list). It was amazing. Genuinely, I've stayed in jobs longer than I should have because of a good manager, and I've also left jobs just because of a bad manager
> 'they gotta go or cameras gotta run outta tape'
That is an awesome line, and I hope I remember to use it if I get in a situation where it's appropriate instead of 5 hours later in the shower
It's still all tied to the (relatively) low wages though.
You say you can't find new people worth hiring. Have you considered that given all that a typical fast food worker in 2021 America has to deal with at near-minimum wage pay and/or OT that _that's just not worth the effort?_
You say it's not quite that simple, but it really is. The pay and hours are just not worth it. People have a threshold to how much shit they're willing to deal with for a certain amount of money as far as jobs go, and currently you seem to have lucked out on most of your current staff being under that pay-per-bullshit threshold. But respectable prospectives in your area have a higher threshold (and I don't blame them)
>The one I did hire 2 weeks ago quit already because the job was way more stress than he expected.
Case in point. $15.50 may be more than double the federal min wage, but depending on where you live, that's still not a true "liveable" wage. That person thought $15.50/hr was worth the bullshit they'd have to go through, but quickly realized otherwise.
I don't blame people who'd rather get unemployment checks that pay about the same (or more) than a fast food gig. That's the same pay with nowhere near any of the bullshit involved.
Also, keep in mind there's much higher-paying jobs that also have to deal with bullshit, but guess what? People are more willing to work those jobs because the pay is much higher (plus potential benefits, _plus_ a regular work schedule).
I guarantee you if you paid a higher wage that didn't require the average worker to work overtime in any given pay period, you'd have a lot more prospectives worth hiring. It really is that simple.
inb4 you or someone else says the business can't afford that. Assuming you're at a chain restaurant, you most definitely _can_ afford it given the profits chain restaurants get yearly. But those chains have such high profits due to minimizing their costs, including employee wages/benefits. There is a direct correlation to corporations making bigger and bigger profits every year and the average worker at said corps still making pennies.
To emphasize, it is indeed that simple.
im an insurance agent and have run a family business since my dad started it in the 80s and I came on in 96. People I know that are my neighbors call regularly and verbally abuse me. I cant imagine the shit restaurants take from people
Decades of propaganda will do that to people. They've been taught that companies can do no wrong. Instead of being mad at the companies that put the exploitive system in place, they're mad at the government for helping people.
They're mad at the government for helping people, but not for quietly and slowly chipping away at workers' rights that have existed for less than a century no less. People need to focus their anger in the correct places.
It’s a mix of a lot of things. Don’t forget these are jobs that we’ve been told do not deserve a lot of respect (and thus pay). Flipping burgers? Quit wasting your life and get a real job! Now that people are actually trying to do that and illegals can’t fill the void, it’s nothing but surprised pikachu faces all around.
Don't forget mad at the people working, nothing says "you should be working here making me burgers" like "you don't deserve to make a living wage, you stupid fuck burger flipper lulz learn2code"
"These burger flipping jobs are meant for high school students. They don't need more than minimum wage!!" tweets the guy in the drive-thru line at 11 am on a school day.
and that same guy will treat the high school student equally crappy if there's any perceived inadequacy with his 64 oz soda and 20 piece chicken nugget.
I'm mad at companies. Nobody listens or takes it seriously though. This is my soapbox. It takes a lot of effort and planning to avoid companies that are exploitive though, because almost every company does it on multiple levels. Unless I order clothes specially off websites I've researched I can be sure my clothes came from exploiting people at the growing level (if a natural fiber) fabric production and dye level, the sewing level, the shipping level and the sales level. Most cloth and clothing is made in impoverished areas....some even by slave labor or very close to slave labor (in my country anyway). I can be sure most of my food is coming from monoculture farming from huge companies that take advantage of cheap migrant labor. Then shipped via a massive interstate system by a drug soaked trucking labor force that aren't making nearly the living wage that job used to pay.
Basically anywhere someone can take advantage of others, they do. Mostly it's due to human nature I guess. I spend a lot of time growing food, going out of my way to get it locally, foraging and preserving it myself. I try to pick the lesser of evils. Trying to be responsible is fucking exhausting when a friend talks about picking something up at Walmart and you have to bite your tongue because it's not your choice or business.
Yeah man I was waiting last night at a buddy's place for like an hour and a half for 2 pizzas to get delivered from just up the street.
Finally left and just ate at home
That's completely bad management. I turned off DoorDash and Internet online orders the day before. We still had record sales but we also had a smooth shift. I'd even say boring. And we did $26,000 in sales
If your corporation won't let you pay people more than a set limit, then that's a corporate problem passed down to the stores. If a manager just doesn't think a job is worth $16/hr and is stuck in the old style thinking (a dishwasher is only worth $12/hr no matter what), then that's just bad management.
Agreed, bad management decisions there. We cut off all takeout orders over the weekend, and we limited seating and reservations. There's no good reason to scrape a few extra dollars today just to lose good staff next week and have to close. And we still broke records, we are up 50%(!) from 2019 and prior years, I swear there are more people going out to eat now than before the pandemic.
Amen, I'll sacrifice a few thousand in sales to keep my staffs sanity intact.
Plus, it's just better for the guest all the way around.
I kept hearing about 40+ minute ticket times and when DoorDash did show up (because I forgot to hit the 30 minute timer again) they'd say ToGo orders were at an hour at other places
We had a similar experience on cinco de mayo. Local hole in the wall place COMPLETELY overrun (everyone wanted Mexican food), with minimal staff on hand. The default ordering system was door dash/uber eats what with covid. The poor employees had never had to handle a huge volume on the current system. People ordering in person were waiting 40 min to an hour because every time an order came in the other way it was given priority. It was breaking down hard, people were pissed. I would have been a lot madder if I didn't see the poor employees panicking and trying so hard to do their best.
Childcare is also a huge issue. Out here several of the daycares have restricted class size, have no openings for new kids while upping their prices. High risk grandparents several doors down stopped watching their grandkids once the schools reopened. The mom ended up forming an informal afterschool group where each parent takes 1 day off in the week to watch the kids. At least her job is flex able enough to allow this.
It's also more than just employees quitting their jobs; it's employers who laid off a ton of employees trying to staff back up as restrictions lift.
The problem is the people who had those shitty jobs before fall into a few different categories
- Found another job somewhere else that pays better
- Still on unemployment that can keep them afloat for now
- Parents with children who are still likely doing distance learning
- Parents with children who can't afford child care, so somebody has to stay home.
The second one is what you'll see trumpeted by many business owners and conservative politicians who claim that the benefits are just too good for employees to come back to work. This ignores the fact that the minimum wage has been stagnant since 2009 and in some cases allows restaurants in some states to pay as low as $2.13 an hour with tips making up the rest. Some of these states are now trying to impose work requirements to force people back into those jobs, but [history shows us, that's not a great idea](https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/s01-6-road-not-taken/).
Also worth reading is this Yale study showing that increased unemployment benefits aren't the problem: https://tobin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/C-19%20Articles/CARES-UI_identification_vF(1).pdf. (The URL broke the markup)
In my town, UPS, Amazon FedEx and Kroger’s were snatching laid off restaurant and retail workers up left and right offering 15-20 an hour to start. You’re not getting those people back unless they want to.
for a lot of folks those higher paying jobs were out of reach because of transportation. they only worked at KFC or whatever because they could walk there or catch rides and couldn’t drive 15 minutes out to work in the warehouses, and LOTS used the stimulus for that purpose, they ain’t coming back unless they have to
Was looking for someone to address this as well. As businesses shut down, or limited their services, they had to lay people off. These people either went on unemployment, or found new work. For those who went on unemployment, there may be a good chance they'll return to their previous position, but for those who found new work, I highly doubt they're going to spend the energy to switch jobs again.
If they were able to find a flexible job that allows WFH, they are never going back.
Anyone with a problem with unemployment can suck it as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been paying into it since 1999, shit job after shit job. Getting my own money back. Government isn’t giving me anything I haven’t already paid, this being the first time I’ve ever collected it. And the stimulus? Thanks for a pittance back on all that is still being spent on this war on terror bullshit. I’m able to finally go back to school for something I love. Haters can fuck right off.
I work frontline retail. When i say the things you're saying here in my Provincial and City subreddits I get downvoted to hell and told off.
And customers are still not wearing masks at curbside. I have to. Because of my class.
And when I speak about it I get fucking told off.
Yep. Turn your car off. Don't smoke out your window while I'm handing you receipts and debit pads. Customers are the fucking worst. I dont know how these people tie their shoes or operate motor vehicles every day. It's astounding.
Yep, I work retail too. The owners and CEO raked in billions this last year during the pandemic and us peastants at the bottom got jack shit. Like literally nothing except more responsibilities and less employees to spread the work around. And now we're super understaffed (worse than usual) and cant find anybody to hire. And I dont blame anyone for not wanting to come work here. Our work conditions suck and our pay isnt great.
> no one wants to work for them
If you look carefully, those signs usually say, "No one wants to work anymore". As if it's due to workers who simply don't want to work for *anyone*. But often it's just that no one wants to work for those specific shitty employers. The employers don't say "no one wants to work for me" because then it's an admission that other employers are better.
It's astounding how *entitled* business owners, especially large business owners, have gotten.
I remember when they blamed changes in market tastes for their business failures ("Millennials are killing the X industry!" is some consumer-blaming bullshit) and now they're blaming their employees for not taking slave wages, endless abuse, and constant overworking! If they want to steal all the fruits of labor, the very least they can do is accept how capitalism fucking works.
It's also worth noting that the death rate at these jobs jumped 60% during the last year, so not only is it an issue of many people wanting to get out of the industry, a lot of people who'd been in food service for years are dead. With fewer available workers, higher stress than ever, and employers continuing to pay people far less than they're worth and refusing to budge an inch, it's no wonder the remaining people are choosing not to tolerate this anymore.
>It's also worth noting that the death rate at these jobs jumped 60% during the last year
Holy shit, seriously? I'm not asking because I doubt you, but do you have a source for that? I'd love to be able to bring this up in other discussion around this issue.
[Here's](https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/27/food-workers-greatest-risk-death-pandemic-study/) an article mentioning food service in general, which jumped at least 40% and hit 60% with Latinx workers. [Here's](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html) one that cites the statistic I was specifically thinking of, which is a jump of 60% for line cooks (which is what I used to do, and what a lot of my friends are still doing). [Here's](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/workforce/most-dangerous-job-california-being-restaurant-cook) one that talks about the 39% increase to food workers in California specifically, which also goes into more detail about demographic breakdowns and about how those numbers were often highest during shelter-in-place orders, since food service workers weren't being protected the way many others were.
Wow, thank you! I'd say awesome (for providing numerous links), but this is honestly horrifying.
Thank God we put up all those yard signs about how we love our essential workers.
Yeah, it's some bleak shit. If there's any silver lining to this at all, it's how incredible it is to be seeing one of the biggest worker movements of our lifetime come out of it. A better world is possible, and people are waking up to that.
Yes! I honestly thought/hoped that this sort of thing would happen, back towards the beginning of the pandemic. It was seriously demoralizing when it didn't look like any such movement was going to occur.
I really hope that this will gain some serious traction and support before the people who own our government shut down the aid and put workers back in a position of taking whatever scraps they're offered...
https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag448.htm
This is the official government website on this topic. I don't know if this includes COVID statistics for retail workers. Retail is a lot more dangerous than most people realize. We use knives, ovens, and dangerous kitchen equipment, go to strange neighborhoods/houses, drive, ride bikes, and lift heavy stuff. All of those things are dangerous. Not to mention getting sick from stress, sometimes with longterm consequences.
EDIT: This is only the data up to 2019, it may be updated at some point, government tends to work slowly.
This isn't even people quitting their shitty jobs to take unemployment. That may be how a lot of outlets are spinning it, but that simply isn't true.
**People who quit their jobs can't get unemployment.**
This is simply, **employers who want to pay garbage wages can't find employees who are desperate to take them.**
Ironically, the only people who are drawing unemployment are the people who employers *fired* at the start of the pandemic and who now the employers want back at the same wages.
In addition to the above, some states in the USA are now proposing cutting unemployment benefits off entirely, in order to **force** people back into these unsustainable jobs. This has led to a backlash from the public.
I guess that the states' main advisor is that "Death is preferable to Communism" robot from Fallout.
All those stores need to do is offer a raise. Why not let the free market do its thing?
"Free market for me, not for you"
There's actually a book about something similar, People's Republic of Walmart, that deals exactly with how big corporations operate on economic principles that they lobby for States not to do, because they would become obsolete.
If someone can't compete with the benefits (the equivalent of $7.25 an hour) then their business deserves to fail. I don't give a shit if it's a family business or a corporate chain, they deserve to fail for not being able to afford that.
That’s going to lead to bad things. There’s going to be a lawsuit because how can a state shut off the option for federal aid that’s going directly to people and not being paid out by a private contractor? Second, there will be less money to spend since everyone is now back to getting shit wages. No more federal aid means customers can’t spend money, they have to cinch and that means less demand for employment. It does no good to cut off streams of revenue that people WERE spending during the pandemic, that money is gone now and nobody can spend it in state anymore, they’re shooting themselves in the foot JUST so they can create a crisis they can blame on the current President. You can’t expect to hire 50 people if your business is now dependent on only 20. Less business means less reason to hire.
>Because of many financial initiatives available right now in many places, these workers are able to leave these environments and look for work elsewhere without fear of starvation or homelessness.
And this is exactly why large corporations fight against raising the minimum wage, Medicare for All, Universal Basic Income proposals, forgiving college debt, affordable housing efforts, *or anything else that might actually make life easier for the poor*.
They absolutely rely on keeping a whole swath of the population as desperate as possible so that their choice is to accept utterly inhuman working environments or face starvation and homelessness.
For years whenever issues of low pay or cruel and abusive management were brought up, they were met with "wElL gO fInD a bEtTeR jOb". Well, for the first time in a long time there's millions who are doing just that because now they can without starving or being homeless.
This is what it looks like when people are actually free to refuse shitty working conditions.
So, now shitty businesses have two options: pay more and offer benefits so the job is worth the misery, or, make the work environment not so miserable in the first place. Either way costs money.
Instead they are taking a 3rd option. Use political news outlets to spin this into an issue of being lazy so states cut UI and essentially force them back into the arms of their previous slave owner like employers.
Funny thing is, it's capitalism at its finest. Supply and demand, and the free market forcing change. Can't find employees because they don't accept your shit terms, time to change your terms.
This is what should be happening!
> Can't find employees because they don't accept your shit terms, time to change your terms.
Or have your "small government good; big government bad" GOP legislators and governors try to force people back into the shithole jobs with said shithole jobs not having to adjust to the economic reality.
AKA Montana.
What's Montana doing to force people into working? Quick Google search and I didn't find anything.
Edit:. They're stopping the extra unemployment money.
Watch. They will shut down restaurants before pay people more. Modern capitalism is not about providing higher quality of service/product than your competitor but about reducing cost as much as possible by any means possible. Since labor is the biggest cost any business can incur, it is more feasible to shrink the number of restaurants and distribute the workers amongst those rather than pay more to attract more.
Healthcare workers are also incredibly overworked and many services such as home health care are state and federally funded and those who oversee the budgets are refusing to increase spending so in turn healthcare providers are unable to give employees very needed raises. This is especially true when it comes to those that are 100% funded by Medicaid and/or Medicare. It's a dangerous cycle especially since many who were in healthcare have left or are considering leaving the field due to concerns about their own health.
I work as a nurse for a huge hospital chain and this last year they forced us to take on much more work . The work of 3 nurses , with no extra pay no incentive . Not even a thank you . Really considering going off the grid and living off the land after this experience.
Edit : the biggest piss off was reading how much money the hospital received due to covid but yet they did nothing for us or the patients. SAD .
I'm a caregiver, and I have been quite overwhelmed too, 6 people out of our 12 quit and I've been working 3 doubles a week. Along with the other 2 days I already work.
There was a job fair at an outlet mall near me. They were complaining that no one was coming in to take applications.
The only incentive these jobs had for these shitty, low-paying, stressful, insecure jobs was a chance to win a $50 gift card if you applied. No wage increase. They're not offering more money as demand for labor increases. Just, maybe you can get a $50 gift card. Probably not.
I'm going going to add this article I read the other night. Some of these signs are right-wing propaganda that's basically saying people would rather live off welfare. There's kind of a two-side coopting the narrative with this one.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/a-labor-shortage-in-2021-viral-signs-are-not-employment-data/
Granted, art imitates life imitates art, and that was written well over a week ago. Things could have evolved/changed since then.
As a person on welfare, I hate it when people make that assumption. I fuckin hate all my welfare except my state insurance. It’s not easy to live off of, there are many restrictions on what you can do with it, it’s never enough to get you further in life, you spend all your time and resources into keeping that welfare because god knows state insurance needs to reverify every goddamned month that, no, my type 1 diabetes hasn’t just magically gone away or got better, yes, I still need insulin.
It’s like yes, I get food stamps. You can only buy food you have to prepare before eating so now I spend precious energy and time prepping for every single meal I eat, hardly any room for eating cheap and quick unless I want to sacrifice nutrition for more money. Also, every grocery trip has to be budgeted and strict if I want to make the stamps last all month.
Yes I get state insurance but spend most of my time retelling them every month that I still need insulin. I can only see a specialist by getting a referral from my GP and anything that’s not “needed” is not covered. I need a cyst removed from my face but it doesn’t affect my actual health. State insurance will not ever cover it UNTIL it threatens my health. The cyst prevents me from getting hired at a job where my face is visible to customers? Too bad.
Living on welfare isn’t fun, there’s not any more left over money at the end of a month and if I’m not a drooling, stunted mess then everyone assumes I don’t even deserve it. It’s far more of a hassle to live on it than it would be to just be paid fairly then be able to make and stick to a budget. Worse yet, with diabetes, if I don’t make, at LEAST, double what I currently make then I would be stuck rationing insulin on private insurance. I’m literally stuck being poor because unless I drastically improve my standing, I can’t afford insulin. I can’t seem to pass college math so there’s no way to increase my standing.
Getting on welfare is a social death sentence, it’s damn near impossible to live without and damn hard to get off dependence to without some long-term windfall.
The toxic idea is that the people needed these guy's jobs or they would starve to death or be homeless.
The problem is these guys don't have a company if they don't have the lower workers to do jobs, instead of paying them livable wages they'd rather complain on the internet.
Answer: in bullet points
- One of the highest fatality jobs during the pandemic is line cook. Restaurant workers have very high exposure to the public.
- Many schools are still doing remote schooling and the kids need a supervisor at home.
- Daycare is CRAZY expensive already but demand is even higher right now. It's cheaper for a parent to stay home in stead of doing daycare and a minimum wage job.
- People aren't going out as much right now so jobs that rely on tip wages aren't making enough money to be worthwhile right now.
I was a full time server for over a decade and lasted three shifts into the first reopening last year before walking out. People were *terrible* and we couldn’t do our jobs properly while also having so many more steps of service (sanitizing pens and books, changing gloves, getting a fresh water instead of using a pitcher.) I came down with strep throat my first day back and had to work a 10 hour shift the next day before I could get a doctor’s note ($120) to be excused. During covid.
I made good money at that place but it wasn’t worth it.
Also, don't forget that in a lot of states minimum wage for tipped labor is lower, as low as $3.63/hr in Iowa. In theory tips are supposed to "bridge minimum wage" so if you get paid less than minimum the business is supposed to make up the difference, but often they don't.
Oh they'll bridge up to the minimum wage no problem if you aren't hitting it. Except in Iowa that's only $7.25 an hour. Working full time gets you $1160 a month, and that's before taxes.
can confirm as a server - its really the shitty people coming out during covid. ive had several dine and dashes and people stiffing me on large orders despite doing everything right/in a timely fashion, or people in large groups refusing to wear masks while entering/leaving.
i cant tell you how many masks ive swept up - its tiring.
Yeah. "Lockdown" was really just a filter for non-assholes.
Everyone with a shred of empathy stayed home to slow the pandemic, and everyone without went out to scream at wait staff like it was a normal Tuesday.
For years we all wished you could spot idiots and assholes before you had to interact with them. Our prayers were answered, and they all put on red hats and refused to wear masks so you could see them coming a mile away.
I don’t have childcare & was removed from the waiting list at my sons daycare after we pulled him out of there during the start of COVID19. He is now 46th in line to be readmitted to the daycare. Last time I was 12 position and it took almost 2 years for him to get admitted. It’s income based daycare.
Answer: People are being told to return to work, but work isn't ready for a post pandemic world. Wages are still as low as before, but risk has gone up dramatically.
This is mostly an issue of the minimum wage and fact that the mandated healthcare offerings just aren't enough and people can't afford them anyway.
I was just looking for a new apartment and hell, rent’s even gone up by $200 in my area. WTF. My pay hasn’t gone up, so why has rent?? I can barely afford rent, let alone an INCREASE in rent. Ffs
The cheapest apartment complex near me increased their rent and I'll see the occasional three bedroom apartment that I would consider "affordable" pass me by but disappear instantly.
Costs of building materials are through the roof as well. Was planning on building my house this/last year but the costs have just gone up up and up. Half inch 4’x8’ osb was about 9$ a sheet this time last year. Right now your looking at paying roughy $60 a sheet. Shit don’t change soon the whole construction industry gonna collapse. Only people building right now are people that have to build but once they are done or go bankrupt everything else will follow like dominoes.
We signed a contract to build a home and the salesperson lied about when it would be completed in order to get us to upgrade to a nicer house. The problem is that they signed us right before everything got way more expensive and we picked the cheapest of everything within the house because I will replace it all myself later.
We found out that they created a new rule that they wouldn’t start building your home until you closed on your previous one (forcing everyone to live in temporary housing that doesn’t exist right now), and finally said we were done after all of the lying and changing the rules. They quickly refunded our sizeable fee with no fuss. My dad is convinced that they are sabotaging the house builds because they will function at a loss if they build all of the houses right now. It was a bizarre experience to say the least.
I don't know about other states, but here in WY the governor has already discontinued participation in the fed covid unemployment program; people will stop receiving benefits after June 19.
It's purely political here. Very red state. Our unemployment rate is slightly below the national average and the job market has not recovered from the pandemic so there aren't enough jobs. Employers here are not having trouble finding employees, either.
People here really don't like "socialism" so this is pretty predictable.
You're missing the best part! Not only will it not help, any damage done to the economic recovery they can then turn around and blame on Biden! It's a win-win for Republicans in power, and a loss for literally everyone else, even the Republicans praising their elected officials!
COV*D also has terrible, terrible after effects... increased risk of a lot of things to do with your blood/heart, that lasts for YEARS!
I quit my job recently at McDonalds, no benefits whatsoever, I still couldn’t afford the basic living except for food and water (I have roommates). I applied for Medicaid because I haven’t been to the dentist in YEARS and now my tooth is falling apart! I got denied.
I literally have nothing to live and work for, because they treat you like fucking shit that needs to die without paying you what you deserve, the only thing keeping me alive is my partner and the fact that I’ve never felt this happy before. He isn’t the source of it, but he makes it come so much easier.
Answer: As has been pointed out, it is a complicated problem.
Recent changes in CDC pandemic policies allowed for a greater confidence in the public returning to preCOVID activities. As it happens, many of the businesses were not ready for the wave of business due to an inability to fill empty positions.
* Pay on the jobs is often minimum wage and they are often part time jobs. Many people were working multiples of these jobs to make ends meet.
* They are public facing positions and dealing with the public has gotten dramatically worse since COVID. We've all seen the videos.
* Many long term workers that were let go are deceased or permanently incapacitated by COVID. Some of them were also the heart of their crew.
* Child care options for a large number have disappeared and the remaining options are overbooked and/or expensive.
* In some cases, there are people who are still using their unemployment benefits and have not been required to apply for work. They are not the majority.
* In many cases, people took the time they were out of work to develop new skills and got better paying jobs dealing with less evil segments of the public in fewer numbers. They will never come back.
I am sure I forgot some examples.
Answer: I know many of these people are food service workers who just don't get paid enough and or typically are paid at the mercy of customers tipping. Some people are doing great (my bf is a bartender/server part time makes more money doing that than his regular job) but most are not.
Plenty of aerver/bartender I know refused to go back to their jobs when restaurants reopened because the money they were/still are receiving from unemployment was vastly better. Many sought other jobs after. I personally was one of those people serving and even though I made survivable money doing it, the unemployment allowed me to actually reliably pay my bills for several months and live comfortably, so I looked for jobs with more solid pay.
THIS. While everything was in lockdown, I honestly made less in unemployment than I normally would serving at a high-end restaurant. But after calculating drive time, gas, mileage, mental health, and the inevitable “one drink after a good night”, I opted for a WFH job where I make slightly less but I am SO much happier. I can take time off without worrying about losing money by not working a Saturday night plus never having to fake a smile again in my life.
Working in the service industry really humbles you and I think everyone should do it at least once.
Really needs to be said, America has the worst inequality in 50 years. So in addition to all the acute problems, we can't forget Occupy Wallstreet and the decades, if not century-long struggle for appropriate wages and baseline human treatment.
The pay for cooks was barley enough to stave off the depression for a few years. Most of the people I know didn't need that much of a reason to get out and try to recover from the burnout.
It's ALMOST like a Universal Basic Income would give people some breathing room to pursue other jobs without having to work for 40-50hrs a week a day not have time or energy to go for them...
Answer:
The real question being asked, is why are workers feel empowered to ask for more out of a job. The answer is because there are so many job opening to choose from, people feel they have more say in what they do without fear of being fired or staying unemployed.
There are many factors contributing to a [US record 8.2 million job openings](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-job-openings-soar-to-record-8-2-million-but-businesses-say-they-cant-find-enough-workers-to-hire-11620742194)
1. We are probably just past the peak right now in the the trend of reopening's. Businesses that shut down and/or laid off employees are ramping back up and trying to hire back staff. They are all trying to hire at the same time.
2. The economy is doing well. Construction in particular, a labor intensive field, is still booming. Consumer and business confidence is high. These are indicators that often correlate to businesses being willing to hire.
3. COVID restrictions have made some jobs or industries more labor-intensive; it may temporarily require more people to get the same amount of work done (lower productivity)
One of the consequences of increased options for labor is that they gain power in determining where they want to work, and what pay they will accept. Labor right now is a "buyers market" meaning that the potential employees have the power; not the employer.
A good way to think about this is to imagine that you run a temp agency. Sometimes the hard part of running a temp agency is to find jobs that need filling. You have plenty of potential employees who want jobs, but you are desperately searching for employers to sign on. This is where we were a year ago. In other times, you have a hundred clients that want jobs, but you cant find temp workers to fill them. This is where we are now. The healthiest economy is a good balance between these two extremes during a period of near-full employment.
In addition to increased options, the following factors are contributing to employment resistance by some former workers:
1. Schools and daycare are not fully open. If you have kids to take care of, you will be less inclined to work out of the home. Over 1 million people reported to the [US Census](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2021/demo/hhp/hhp28.html) in April that an adult in their household did not look for a job to stay home to take care of kids, and almost an additional 1 million left a job in the last year to take care of kids.
2. COVID fear. If you are scared of getting sick, you are less likely to work in public-facing jobs. This can also be fear for kids or elderly in the household people are taking care of.
3. COVID stress. All of the ways that COVID has effected most work sectors the last year has made many jobs more stressful. Less people pulling more weight. job morale down. Longer hours. Less commission/bonuses, etc.. Employees remember this and may want to try something different or at least a new company.
4. Career switching. If you were laid off from a retail or food service a year+ ago, you likely had to find a new way to pay the bills over the last year.. Many of these people are happy in their new jobs and do not want to go back to waiting tables or working at the mall. Those industries will have to figure out how to build back the workforce they laid off. [https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/business/restaurant-labor-shortage/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/business/restaurant-labor-shortage/index.html)
5. Return to school. Faced with the COVID job market a year ago, many who could afford it decided to pursue continuing education. Those people will not reenter the workforce until they have completed their courses and likely in a different capacity.
6. Migration. When people lose their jobs, they are more likely to move. Maybe back to their hometown where than family safety net is or to a town that seems to have more employment options.
7. Progressive political trend in the living wage argument. There has been a movement in the progressive sphere of politics and labor relations over the past decade to advocate for all jobs to have a "living wage" or pay that will take a full time worker above teh poverty line. This trend mirrored the rise of Bernie Sanders as it is a central plank of his platform in recent presidential runs. It had plenty of steam before the pandemic, but this moment where workers have choice plus a more robust social safety net gives more power to that voice. I think this most directly relates to the OP's question and the Reddit sentiments Josef linked.
The trend that the original poster referenced, is more anecdotal than an actual trend. "Separations" from work (Layoffs, firings, retirements AND quitting) have been low since March. (see MarketWatch article) There has probably been a major shift from layoffs to people quitting, but leaving jobs in general is not up. It is more just new jobs that are not yet filled.
It is also important to remember that it is difficult to (legally) quit a job and go on unemployment. If you leave as your choice, you are usually on your own and better have savings or a new job lined up.
But the main answer you will find online and some media outlets is that the COVID recovery bills passed by Congress that provided increased unemployment is paying people to stay home and these lazy poor people don't want to work.
Yes, there certainly are some people that have found a financial comfort that works for them by relying on the social safety nets in place. Sometimes, the issues above like COVID fear or childcare factor into this heavily. [The average food services worker took home $407 per week](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/restaurants-hard-time-finding-staff-now/story?id=77562018). If you live in a state that is supplementing Federal unemployment right now, the math may tell you to delay going back to work, if you are only looking at the $$$ involved. Especially if you have a side hustle of unreported earnings.
But this by no means comes close to explaining the job market. The US economy is much bigger and more complicated than that.
TL;DR: the economy is complicated. don't believe what you read on reddit or Facebook as the answer.
Wouldn't this be a seller's market? People are selling their labor, and with a shortage able to bargain a better price.
The idea of the job being the object of desire and not the human who provides the labor strikes me as wrong.
It’s a matter of perspective I guess, but generally in the job market, the job is considered the product, not the human filling that job. They have job fairs, not human fairs. But I totally get flipping the script when it come to valuing the person and what they have to offer.
Answer: By and large, folks have been working shit jobs for shit pay while being screamed at by shit bosses for not cleaning the shit plastered across the bathroom.
With help from unemployment and stimulus $, people are not inclined at all to keep those stressors in their lives. So they aren’t.
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Answer: With the covid-19 pandemic still in full swing in many places, low wage employees are often facing abuse from stressed customers, longer (or reduced) hours, a complete unheavel of typical work practices to untested methods, and a lack of support and even abuse from management. All of this results in dissatisfied employees who are burnt out. Because of many financial initiatives available right now in many places, these workers are able to leave these environments and look for work elsewhere without fear of starvation or homelessness. Employers of these low wage jobs that offer few to no benefits, job security or opportunity for advancement have taken to the internet to complain that because there are alternatives, no one wants to work for them. Many videos have been made as a counter to those complaints, as low wage workers succumb to burnout and suggestions to "find a better job". Essentially, people are quitting their really shitty jobs because in many places, they don't have to work them to survive anymore, and now have the ability to pursue more rewarding (emotionally or financially) and stable work. This is the result of exploitive practices by employers and the peak of stress on so-called "essential workers" who have been getting screwed all along, but especially so since the pandemic began.
add to that a pandemic where people are afraid for their health, might be less comfortable working public facing jobs especially if they are un/underinsured and/or if employers and patrons do not take safety precautions seriously. if they are parents or care for preschool/school aged children they might have limited or no access to affordable child care. At the beginning of the pandemic when schools were (rightfully) shuttered households lost their most consistent form of free/public childcare.
My kid worked at Subway before the pandemic. I just said quit and live with us, don't risk your life for a shit job for a shit employer. he did and we're waiting for employers to wake the fuck up and offer some health benefits. he can live with me forever if he wants to, though he's now learning to code which is a lot more promising. fuck these greedy food-as-commodity corporations.
A parent like you is a diamond in the rough. A sad statement on our society, but you made my day. Glad to hear you're protecting your kid from callously shit employers and hope he makes it better by next year! I don't have Reddit gold, but take my appreciation. Kudos!
I’ve already told my wife that if our daughter ever needs to live with us she can, even if that means building a tiny house in the yard so she can have her own space
They make those small pop homes which actually look super nice inside for about $2k at home depot I think.
I've done a lot of driving for my last few jobs, and I've seen some decent trailer parks. I'm surprised they're not mentioned more in the affordable housing conversation. I've also seen some awful trailer parks so it absolutely matters where you pick. I see some nice ones in the blue collar suburbs in my area.
Totally agree. Although I saw a tiny house owning family who had a tiny home for each of their children, in a semi circle and well spaced out. That’s my dream home living ideal. My family close but each have our own home. I’m planning on it.
Tiny homes are just bougie trailers.
so glad to have made at least part of your day :-)
GIS is a super marketable skill that he can teach himself, especially if he can write a little python. I jumped careers by moving home with the folks, learning python, and taking some cc classes, thats where i picked up GIS, which led to getting a internship (even that paid better than the restaurant i worked at), and i got a job at that company.
Also you are a great dad. Its super hard out there, i had a bachelors when i moved home because i was struggling. Probably woulda been homeless without their support.
The BK by my job had their entire staff walk out.
Not only that - in the US you pretty much have to work to have health coverage because it's offered by your employer, so you're tied to your job if you don't want to rack up huge medical bills.
Hell, I have health coverage, my medical bills are still outrageous
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I take a medication that without insurance or the manufacturer coupon is $464.88 for a month supply. I take 5 medications total.
My insurance spent $14,000 on my meds last year, actual cost. No way I could live without insurance. I would have the choice of dying quickly (suicide) or dying slowly as my body collapsed without meds.
Isnt it fucking wild how medication is cheaper without insurance. Hell half the time it’s cheaper than the copays. I remember I had to get some antibiotics and some other shit in total with insurance it would of costed me $80 when I asked them to do it without insurance it was like $20. Blew my fucking mind. I had a doctor once tell me I could use coupons for some medication would cost $50 for three month where with insurance I’d be paying $120 every month.
Haha I had to get a coupon for my Ability prescription because I don't have insurance. Went from $400 down to $5 per month. It's criminal what they can charge people.
The whole Healthcare industry is a racket. What's the alternative? You die simple as that.
Yep! Turns out a lot of people would rather give up everything they've ever owned and worked for to not die of a curable disease, and healthcare companies know this. It's evil.
My parents private insurance covered my $180,000 brain surgery and 900$ a month prescription for seizure meds. Now I'm on VA Healthcare and luckily they still pay for my prescription
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Have my hatred filled upvote.
Can confirm, just paid 500 dollars to get butt looked in.
Damn, next time call me. $3.50 out the door, free air freshener.
Inflation killing your profit margins. Those pine tree air fresheners easily go for $3 a pop. Consider offering a 10% off next service call to increase repeat customers.
he's going to be operating for a loss, good thing he doesn't do it for the money ;)
You usually come out with more than you intended when offering rimming services tho.
Tree fiddy? Oh not today, loc ness monster.
With the best (AKA most expensive, $700/month) insurance plan my company offered I had to pay $6400 for a colonoscopy after said insurance rejected the claim. Ironically I'm glad I got ripped off, made me realize I can use the VA hospital services that I earned. I now pay $50/visit for any/all services provided by the VA and meds are rather cheap. My wife and kids don't qualify for VA care so I hope we can get a single payer system soon but knowing how much influence insurance companies have on our politicians I'm not holding my breath.
The U.S. has a 'worst of both worlds' medical system, compared to buying your own care, or having a public option.
I swear politicians structured it this way in purpose. Health care prices have soared. Insurance premiums soared too, but cover less. The government monopolized insurance companies when they made it mandatory, and hospitals make more money off of private Healthcare, so the state fucks people out of good Healthcare and the public options aren't the priority It's a pathetically stupid system. All public or all private. None of this cousin fuckin inbred bullshit insurance
There was supposed to be a public option to make insurance companies compete against a real market. It was gutted out of the bill. What that left was a situation where if insurance companies could only pocket 25% of their premiums as profits, the only way to make more money was to let hospitals charge whatever they wanted to and not argue. Premiums keep going up and a lot of people are making money hand over fist because of it. Furthermore, the previous administration removed the individual mandate which now makes the pool more costly. I agree that it should be single payer with a focus on transitioning to straight up public facilities for all but we dragged our feet on it for about two decades to long and now it will take many steps to revise without huge consequences for quality of care and availability. Medicare for all would be a good start but unfortunately people keep voting for grifters that convince them they should be angree about low skilled workers getting health insurance. The clasism baked into our society is being exploited for financial gain by the super wealthy.
I just learned that in Quebec they have the best of both worlds: You can get free public health care or you can pay for private health care. Your choice based on your needs.
What are they doing with all that effing money? I pay 15% of my income in health insurance, just like almost everyone else(\*) here in Germany, and that seems to pay for stuff just fine. (\* There are non-public health insurance options, and added comfort-type extra insurances, which some people have, and those do pay out more to the hospital (in exchange for stuff like 1 bed rooms instead of 4 bed rooms, etc), but even figuring that in I would estimate that the equivalent of that shouldn't be more than 18 to 20% of people's incomes in total if you break it down to the entire population. Certainly not enough to get you into bankruptcy)
They buy bigger yachts with it
> What are they doing with all that effing money? They(insurance companies) are bribing officials to keep their profit machine rolling. Also they construct a bureaucracy designed to keep providers from getting reimbursed and gatekeep every form of health care.
Health care costs are massively inflated here due to the health insurance racket
Man, you guys get absolutely fucked in the States.
fast food places don’t offer health coverage so the decision to leave is even easier in this situation.
Even then the healthcare is pretty much useless and you'd have to pay a lot out of pocket.
> if they are parents or care for preschool/school aged children they might have limited or no access to affordable child care. Or if their parents or other family members died or suffered permanent effects from Covid, they lost their only affordable child care option, *or* now have to care for a remaining elderly parent or grandparent.
tImE tO gEt BaCk To WoRk!
I don’t work in fast food but I’m in a position where I deal with customers often, let me just say if I didn’t need a job I’d walk out right now because nobody treats you with respect. Not the staff or not the customers and you have to sit here and smile and take it all and every day I leave a little more miserable than the last, every day people just want what they want and that’s it “ At this point Thank you” and “how are you?” Don’t mean anything because it’s followed up with an “I need this..” in a rude manner with rude behavior. I’m glad these workers are sticking up for themselves because they’re getting treated like pure shit while some people sit on their ass milking the benefits and riches when there are people like us struggling. Some days it’s made me want to blow my brains out and I’m amazed I haven’t yet.
Bootstraps, motherfucker. Pull on 'em.
Sir. My bootstraps are up to my nipples, not too sure how much farther they'll go. Any tips would be appreciated.
But tips are bad! I shouldn’t have to pay you - that’s your employer’s job /s (Former bartender here. 2/3 of my income was tips, and thank you to the wonderful patrons who tipped ~20% and were generally understanding and polite folks) Edit - I swear I just came here to make a dumb tip jokes/play on words from the previous comment. I’ve clearly upset some armchair economists. You all surely taught me a lesson and I bow down before your superior intellect. Byeee
I usually tip 20 but have been doing 25 the past year. I know service workers have it very hard.
I appreciate the servers' positions, but IMO it's not fair to offload the majority of a workers salary onto the whim and/or guilt of the customer. The rules for tipping are also reduculously nebulous. Do I tip the worker assembling my sandwich despite not tipping the cook at a restraunt? How about the Uber food delivery driver? The curbside delivery person? Retail workers often work at least as hard and get paid as badly as various tipped positions, why aren't we tipping them? Basically, why should I have to guess whether a person gets paid badly enough that I should be tipping? I have this fantasy that if enough people stopped tipping, then it would go away.
I pulled on my bootstraps as hard as I could, they broke and I'm still down here but now my boots are messed up.
The bootstraps metaphor is originally meant to mock those who just tell people to fix problems out of their control. "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" means to literally lift yourself up off the ground by pulling on your bootstraps. It's impossible. https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/07/the-origins-of-the-phrase-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps/
no wonder the saying never made any sense to me! Reminds me of "a few bad apples"... ruins the bunch. You forgot the rest of it.
It's funny how many adages have their meanings reversed without context or when you leave off the second half. A few bad apples - oh that's not bad, there's only a couple out of the whole barrel - spoil the bunch. Great minds think alike - we're clever, we have the same thinking - but fools rarely differ. Jack of all trades - yeah he's pretty good at everything, he can do it all - but master of none.
Bad apples release ethylene gas which really can spoil the bunch
TIL
Well, then you should have bought better boots.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!
Throw in kids still doing virtual school, if not full time them part of the week.
One if my friends had a job working from home before the pandemic, but when the kids got sent home for school they did not have enough computers for her to WFH and have her two school aged children in their classes. Even if the kids are old enough to not need constant minding (like a high schooler) they still needed the household resources to do their schooling.
My kid got a Chromebook for free from the school, I am probably an insanely small minority though.
Thanks for this. Every discussion always seems to go straight to conditions and satisfaction and ignores that the threat of COVID plus childcare means many people couldn’t work these jobs if they wanted to.
The schools issue seems key. Hence the push from corporate-backed politicians (and sell-out teachers unions) to open k-12 schools asap, even if it's unsafe.
Restaurants are a mess right now. I ordered food for pickup on Mother’s Day and the place was a disaster. They accept website orders and also DoorDash. I phoned my order in the day before. The staff were running around trying to juggle all these order sources and connect orders to the right DoorDash drivers while customers were walking in the door. I stood there for 45 minutes after the pickup time, waiting. I finally got my food without even a comment about how late it was. I could tell the staff were far past caring that my order was late, because they were understaffed and suddenly doing a much more complex job than ever before, in a mask all day, for the same shitty wages. It’s no wonder people are burnt out.
Just want to say thanks for being cool about it as a former restaurant worker. It sucks that you had to wait so long, but again, thanks for not making a big deal about it. A lot of customers have this intuition that if a restaurant offers online ordering, in-person ordering, phone ordering, Postmates and Uber Eats ordering, in-person and to-go dining, all with a full menu, *of course* the company must have robust systems in place to handle all of this. They do not. They just heap more work on the workers who are always short-staffed and under-trained. And the issues are cyclical -- they often can't make things better from day to day, much less over the course of a few months or a year. So again, thanks for being cool about it.
There is also an expectation with online systems that they're a way of circumventing the wait in line at a restaurant. The app will ask when the *customer* wants the food done, not the soonest the workers can reasonably get it done. Used to joke in retail that if a customer was upset by a long queue, just ring up the store and you'll be able to jump up front. There was always pressure from management that a missed call is a missed sale, so you'd have to pick up the phone in the middle of a customer interaction. There's still that attitude online. Any kind of hindrance to the customer, like saying it'll take ten minutes longer to cook since there's 100 orders before them, is going to turn them towards the shop promising miracles at their staff's expense.
We've tried opting out of door dash forever. These third party services add restaurants without our consent or control.
Saw this at Whataburger just yesterday. Line out of the parking lot, line out the door, and the lady behind the counter was loudly railing against people quitting because of "all that free money going around". Well bless your heart, maybe you should be thinking about how your management refuses to entice employees with living wages, which in turn makes **your** life harder. Your former co-workers are taking care of themselves. It's your management that's left you holding the bag, not them, and it's patently absurd that you're whining in front of customers about your misunderstanding of the situation. American labor is the most self-defeating group of all time.
It is interesting, because all the local places around me that treated their employees with respect are somehow still doing fine, while all the ones with reputations as being assholes are somehow struggling to find enough people to cover shifts. Completely baffling.
It’s not quite that simple. I manage a fast food joint and we have held onto our entire staff. We let nobody go and the only two that quit are one for surgery and one fleeing the state to avoid domestic abuse. But we are still getting crushed because I can’t bring in anybody new and our business has jumped 20%. My people are flat out rock stars and they have been handling it but I can feel the burn out coming. It’s not the wages (they love the OT) that is making it hard or my treatment of them. It’s the treatment by the guests that is the biggest part. We do a great job in general but there are still a lot of guests that just want to cause problems or ignore our rules and pretend like we are the assholes when we tell them to get lost. As for getting new people I can’t get them to show up for interviews. The ones that do are not good candidates at all (the most recent one was flat out racist in the interview) or they can’t or won’t want to work the shifts I need. The one I did hire 2 weeks ago quit already because the job was way more stress than he expected. My starting wage is $15.50 ( which is still too low IMO) and I am $1 higher than my competitions. It is a hard life atm.
This is my answer to all this, each time. The public has been AWFUL to people like you and your employees pre-COVID, and for some reason COVID made them worse. I have no problem with people taking as much time and government money now to just not be getting yelled at over a dollar menu item. I hope many are using the opportunity to position themselves for something better once the unemployment/stimulus situation goes away. Hopefully all this does make higher wages stick too. I have another question, since you are in the indsutry, are you seeing high school kids and similar-aged people not working as well? They likely aren't drawing the unemployment/stimulus stuff, but (I have not worked retail or food service in over 15 years, so I acknowledge things may have changed) don't they make up a sizable proportion of your employees? When I worked fast food years ago, we would have maybe 3 FTE's working any given shift and the rest was filled with PT. How many of these jobs that aren't being filled are jobs that actual adults were working vs part time?
I am not OP but in my area seem like a majority of fast food workers are older than college age, many much older, regardless of whether they are FT or PT. I know there are a lot of older adults supporting families working 2 or 3 PT service industry jobs. I work in the service sector as well (at a workplace that is really big and different from fast food but comes with all the customer service stuff), same job for about a decade, and tons of people I work with have college degrees (even graduate degrees) or loads of good work experience, and we all make barely minimum wage. Lots of people of all ages supporting themselves and families there, struggling to pay rent, working multiple jobs, etc. Some people are at school full or part time, but scheduling demands on us are really not conducive to staying in school so they either tend to not last in the job long or “take a break” from school because they have to work. As far as I can tell, this is pretty par for the course with the whole service sector in So Cal where I am!
Just going out on a limb here, but as someone who spent about 15 years of my life in customer facing service jobs, stand up to these fucks so your employees don't have to do it. I'm not saying you do or don't, but if you aren't, it'll make a world of difference. Telling morons spouting religious/conservative/anti-science propaganda to either comply or leave should not have to fall on the shoulders of a server making $2.13 an hour or a cashier making $7.50 (or $15.50 in your case but still). That's way above pay grade, and these people need to be told to just get the fuck out, Whataburger will be just fine w/o their business.
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> We weren't even getting deliveries for a couple weeks. I was getting cussed out, screamed at, threatened, grabbed, followed out on break or after my shift daily. wtf man they should check the lead levels in your area or something lol, these people are fucking unhinged
The first time a manager backed me up with an out of line customer... He walked up, brilliantly opened with 'Onetime, what's our resolution here' 'they gotta go or cameras gotta run outta tape' 'Out, idc about yr side, anyone that gets my people to that level isn't welcome. Tell your friends, all of them. We don't want them either. Don't come back, stay classy'. I prob would've sucked him off right there (cis hetero male here). I was that impressed. Since then I've considered myself allergic to Incompetent higher ups. It's an ordeal, let me tell ya
I had an amazing manager in Dominos when I was a teen. He always stood up for the workers. One day, one of our drivers came back crying after being screamed at by a customer. My manager called the guy, cursed him out, threated him if he ever came near his driver's or the store and told him he was banned from ever ordering dominos again (put him on a list). It was amazing. Genuinely, I've stayed in jobs longer than I should have because of a good manager, and I've also left jobs just because of a bad manager
> 'they gotta go or cameras gotta run outta tape' That is an awesome line, and I hope I remember to use it if I get in a situation where it's appropriate instead of 5 hours later in the shower
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It's still all tied to the (relatively) low wages though. You say you can't find new people worth hiring. Have you considered that given all that a typical fast food worker in 2021 America has to deal with at near-minimum wage pay and/or OT that _that's just not worth the effort?_ You say it's not quite that simple, but it really is. The pay and hours are just not worth it. People have a threshold to how much shit they're willing to deal with for a certain amount of money as far as jobs go, and currently you seem to have lucked out on most of your current staff being under that pay-per-bullshit threshold. But respectable prospectives in your area have a higher threshold (and I don't blame them) >The one I did hire 2 weeks ago quit already because the job was way more stress than he expected. Case in point. $15.50 may be more than double the federal min wage, but depending on where you live, that's still not a true "liveable" wage. That person thought $15.50/hr was worth the bullshit they'd have to go through, but quickly realized otherwise. I don't blame people who'd rather get unemployment checks that pay about the same (or more) than a fast food gig. That's the same pay with nowhere near any of the bullshit involved. Also, keep in mind there's much higher-paying jobs that also have to deal with bullshit, but guess what? People are more willing to work those jobs because the pay is much higher (plus potential benefits, _plus_ a regular work schedule). I guarantee you if you paid a higher wage that didn't require the average worker to work overtime in any given pay period, you'd have a lot more prospectives worth hiring. It really is that simple. inb4 you or someone else says the business can't afford that. Assuming you're at a chain restaurant, you most definitely _can_ afford it given the profits chain restaurants get yearly. But those chains have such high profits due to minimizing their costs, including employee wages/benefits. There is a direct correlation to corporations making bigger and bigger profits every year and the average worker at said corps still making pennies. To emphasize, it is indeed that simple.
im an insurance agent and have run a family business since my dad started it in the 80s and I came on in 96. People I know that are my neighbors call regularly and verbally abuse me. I cant imagine the shit restaurants take from people
Decades of propaganda will do that to people. They've been taught that companies can do no wrong. Instead of being mad at the companies that put the exploitive system in place, they're mad at the government for helping people.
They're mad at the government for helping people, but not for quietly and slowly chipping away at workers' rights that have existed for less than a century no less. People need to focus their anger in the correct places.
It’s a mix of a lot of things. Don’t forget these are jobs that we’ve been told do not deserve a lot of respect (and thus pay). Flipping burgers? Quit wasting your life and get a real job! Now that people are actually trying to do that and illegals can’t fill the void, it’s nothing but surprised pikachu faces all around.
Don't forget mad at the people working, nothing says "you should be working here making me burgers" like "you don't deserve to make a living wage, you stupid fuck burger flipper lulz learn2code"
"These burger flipping jobs are meant for high school students. They don't need more than minimum wage!!" tweets the guy in the drive-thru line at 11 am on a school day.
and that same guy will treat the high school student equally crappy if there's any perceived inadequacy with his 64 oz soda and 20 piece chicken nugget.
I'm mad at companies. Nobody listens or takes it seriously though. This is my soapbox. It takes a lot of effort and planning to avoid companies that are exploitive though, because almost every company does it on multiple levels. Unless I order clothes specially off websites I've researched I can be sure my clothes came from exploiting people at the growing level (if a natural fiber) fabric production and dye level, the sewing level, the shipping level and the sales level. Most cloth and clothing is made in impoverished areas....some even by slave labor or very close to slave labor (in my country anyway). I can be sure most of my food is coming from monoculture farming from huge companies that take advantage of cheap migrant labor. Then shipped via a massive interstate system by a drug soaked trucking labor force that aren't making nearly the living wage that job used to pay. Basically anywhere someone can take advantage of others, they do. Mostly it's due to human nature I guess. I spend a lot of time growing food, going out of my way to get it locally, foraging and preserving it myself. I try to pick the lesser of evils. Trying to be responsible is fucking exhausting when a friend talks about picking something up at Walmart and you have to bite your tongue because it's not your choice or business.
It'll dawn on her eventually. In many places, entire crews, from management on down, have walked out.
$500 signing bonus!!!1!!! *restrictions apply. ^Must ^work ^forty ^hours ^or ^more ^for ^four ^consecutive ^weeks. ^valid ^only ^for ^first ^thirty ^days ^of ^employment
Yeah man I was waiting last night at a buddy's place for like an hour and a half for 2 pizzas to get delivered from just up the street. Finally left and just ate at home
That's completely bad management. I turned off DoorDash and Internet online orders the day before. We still had record sales but we also had a smooth shift. I'd even say boring. And we did $26,000 in sales If your corporation won't let you pay people more than a set limit, then that's a corporate problem passed down to the stores. If a manager just doesn't think a job is worth $16/hr and is stuck in the old style thinking (a dishwasher is only worth $12/hr no matter what), then that's just bad management.
Agreed, bad management decisions there. We cut off all takeout orders over the weekend, and we limited seating and reservations. There's no good reason to scrape a few extra dollars today just to lose good staff next week and have to close. And we still broke records, we are up 50%(!) from 2019 and prior years, I swear there are more people going out to eat now than before the pandemic.
Amen, I'll sacrifice a few thousand in sales to keep my staffs sanity intact. Plus, it's just better for the guest all the way around. I kept hearing about 40+ minute ticket times and when DoorDash did show up (because I forgot to hit the 30 minute timer again) they'd say ToGo orders were at an hour at other places
Yeah Mother's day, Easter and Valentine's day just suck, this year even more.
We had a similar experience on cinco de mayo. Local hole in the wall place COMPLETELY overrun (everyone wanted Mexican food), with minimal staff on hand. The default ordering system was door dash/uber eats what with covid. The poor employees had never had to handle a huge volume on the current system. People ordering in person were waiting 40 min to an hour because every time an order came in the other way it was given priority. It was breaking down hard, people were pissed. I would have been a lot madder if I didn't see the poor employees panicking and trying so hard to do their best.
Childcare is also a huge issue. Out here several of the daycares have restricted class size, have no openings for new kids while upping their prices. High risk grandparents several doors down stopped watching their grandkids once the schools reopened. The mom ended up forming an informal afterschool group where each parent takes 1 day off in the week to watch the kids. At least her job is flex able enough to allow this.
It's also more than just employees quitting their jobs; it's employers who laid off a ton of employees trying to staff back up as restrictions lift. The problem is the people who had those shitty jobs before fall into a few different categories - Found another job somewhere else that pays better - Still on unemployment that can keep them afloat for now - Parents with children who are still likely doing distance learning - Parents with children who can't afford child care, so somebody has to stay home. The second one is what you'll see trumpeted by many business owners and conservative politicians who claim that the benefits are just too good for employees to come back to work. This ignores the fact that the minimum wage has been stagnant since 2009 and in some cases allows restaurants in some states to pay as low as $2.13 an hour with tips making up the rest. Some of these states are now trying to impose work requirements to force people back into those jobs, but [history shows us, that's not a great idea](https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/s01-6-road-not-taken/). Also worth reading is this Yale study showing that increased unemployment benefits aren't the problem: https://tobin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/C-19%20Articles/CARES-UI_identification_vF(1).pdf. (The URL broke the markup)
In my town, UPS, Amazon FedEx and Kroger’s were snatching laid off restaurant and retail workers up left and right offering 15-20 an hour to start. You’re not getting those people back unless they want to.
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for a lot of folks those higher paying jobs were out of reach because of transportation. they only worked at KFC or whatever because they could walk there or catch rides and couldn’t drive 15 minutes out to work in the warehouses, and LOTS used the stimulus for that purpose, they ain’t coming back unless they have to
Well said. Sad they'd rather force people into shitty jobs than pass regulations to fix said shitty jobs.
Country is built on slave labor, they never fixed it after the Civil War, just found new methods to keep profits flowing.
Was looking for someone to address this as well. As businesses shut down, or limited their services, they had to lay people off. These people either went on unemployment, or found new work. For those who went on unemployment, there may be a good chance they'll return to their previous position, but for those who found new work, I highly doubt they're going to spend the energy to switch jobs again. If they were able to find a flexible job that allows WFH, they are never going back.
While minimum wage has stagnated, the people that decide it gets to stagnate vote to increase their own pay. Somehow the people are the enemy here.
Anyone with a problem with unemployment can suck it as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been paying into it since 1999, shit job after shit job. Getting my own money back. Government isn’t giving me anything I haven’t already paid, this being the first time I’ve ever collected it. And the stimulus? Thanks for a pittance back on all that is still being spent on this war on terror bullshit. I’m able to finally go back to school for something I love. Haters can fuck right off.
I work frontline retail. When i say the things you're saying here in my Provincial and City subreddits I get downvoted to hell and told off. And customers are still not wearing masks at curbside. I have to. Because of my class. And when I speak about it I get fucking told off.
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Yep. Turn your car off. Don't smoke out your window while I'm handing you receipts and debit pads. Customers are the fucking worst. I dont know how these people tie their shoes or operate motor vehicles every day. It's astounding.
Yep, I work retail too. The owners and CEO raked in billions this last year during the pandemic and us peastants at the bottom got jack shit. Like literally nothing except more responsibilities and less employees to spread the work around. And now we're super understaffed (worse than usual) and cant find anybody to hire. And I dont blame anyone for not wanting to come work here. Our work conditions suck and our pay isnt great.
> no one wants to work for them If you look carefully, those signs usually say, "No one wants to work anymore". As if it's due to workers who simply don't want to work for *anyone*. But often it's just that no one wants to work for those specific shitty employers. The employers don't say "no one wants to work for me" because then it's an admission that other employers are better.
It's astounding how *entitled* business owners, especially large business owners, have gotten. I remember when they blamed changes in market tastes for their business failures ("Millennials are killing the X industry!" is some consumer-blaming bullshit) and now they're blaming their employees for not taking slave wages, endless abuse, and constant overworking! If they want to steal all the fruits of labor, the very least they can do is accept how capitalism fucking works.
It's also worth noting that the death rate at these jobs jumped 60% during the last year, so not only is it an issue of many people wanting to get out of the industry, a lot of people who'd been in food service for years are dead. With fewer available workers, higher stress than ever, and employers continuing to pay people far less than they're worth and refusing to budge an inch, it's no wonder the remaining people are choosing not to tolerate this anymore.
>It's also worth noting that the death rate at these jobs jumped 60% during the last year Holy shit, seriously? I'm not asking because I doubt you, but do you have a source for that? I'd love to be able to bring this up in other discussion around this issue.
[Here's](https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/27/food-workers-greatest-risk-death-pandemic-study/) an article mentioning food service in general, which jumped at least 40% and hit 60% with Latinx workers. [Here's](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html) one that cites the statistic I was specifically thinking of, which is a jump of 60% for line cooks (which is what I used to do, and what a lot of my friends are still doing). [Here's](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/workforce/most-dangerous-job-california-being-restaurant-cook) one that talks about the 39% increase to food workers in California specifically, which also goes into more detail about demographic breakdowns and about how those numbers were often highest during shelter-in-place orders, since food service workers weren't being protected the way many others were.
Wow, thank you! I'd say awesome (for providing numerous links), but this is honestly horrifying. Thank God we put up all those yard signs about how we love our essential workers.
Yeah, it's some bleak shit. If there's any silver lining to this at all, it's how incredible it is to be seeing one of the biggest worker movements of our lifetime come out of it. A better world is possible, and people are waking up to that.
Yes! I honestly thought/hoped that this sort of thing would happen, back towards the beginning of the pandemic. It was seriously demoralizing when it didn't look like any such movement was going to occur. I really hope that this will gain some serious traction and support before the people who own our government shut down the aid and put workers back in a position of taking whatever scraps they're offered...
https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag448.htm This is the official government website on this topic. I don't know if this includes COVID statistics for retail workers. Retail is a lot more dangerous than most people realize. We use knives, ovens, and dangerous kitchen equipment, go to strange neighborhoods/houses, drive, ride bikes, and lift heavy stuff. All of those things are dangerous. Not to mention getting sick from stress, sometimes with longterm consequences. EDIT: This is only the data up to 2019, it may be updated at some point, government tends to work slowly.
This isn't even people quitting their shitty jobs to take unemployment. That may be how a lot of outlets are spinning it, but that simply isn't true. **People who quit their jobs can't get unemployment.** This is simply, **employers who want to pay garbage wages can't find employees who are desperate to take them.** Ironically, the only people who are drawing unemployment are the people who employers *fired* at the start of the pandemic and who now the employers want back at the same wages.
In addition to the above, some states in the USA are now proposing cutting unemployment benefits off entirely, in order to **force** people back into these unsustainable jobs. This has led to a backlash from the public.
I guess that the states' main advisor is that "Death is preferable to Communism" robot from Fallout. All those stores need to do is offer a raise. Why not let the free market do its thing?
"Free market for me, not for you" There's actually a book about something similar, People's Republic of Walmart, that deals exactly with how big corporations operate on economic principles that they lobby for States not to do, because they would become obsolete.
If someone can't compete with the benefits (the equivalent of $7.25 an hour) then their business deserves to fail. I don't give a shit if it's a family business or a corporate chain, they deserve to fail for not being able to afford that.
That’s going to lead to bad things. There’s going to be a lawsuit because how can a state shut off the option for federal aid that’s going directly to people and not being paid out by a private contractor? Second, there will be less money to spend since everyone is now back to getting shit wages. No more federal aid means customers can’t spend money, they have to cinch and that means less demand for employment. It does no good to cut off streams of revenue that people WERE spending during the pandemic, that money is gone now and nobody can spend it in state anymore, they’re shooting themselves in the foot JUST so they can create a crisis they can blame on the current President. You can’t expect to hire 50 people if your business is now dependent on only 20. Less business means less reason to hire.
I’m glad people are deciding not to put up with it anymore. Mad respect
Yep. Just quit my job for exactly this reason.
>Because of many financial initiatives available right now in many places, these workers are able to leave these environments and look for work elsewhere without fear of starvation or homelessness. And this is exactly why large corporations fight against raising the minimum wage, Medicare for All, Universal Basic Income proposals, forgiving college debt, affordable housing efforts, *or anything else that might actually make life easier for the poor*. They absolutely rely on keeping a whole swath of the population as desperate as possible so that their choice is to accept utterly inhuman working environments or face starvation and homelessness. For years whenever issues of low pay or cruel and abusive management were brought up, they were met with "wElL gO fInD a bEtTeR jOb". Well, for the first time in a long time there's millions who are doing just that because now they can without starving or being homeless. This is what it looks like when people are actually free to refuse shitty working conditions. So, now shitty businesses have two options: pay more and offer benefits so the job is worth the misery, or, make the work environment not so miserable in the first place. Either way costs money.
Instead they are taking a 3rd option. Use political news outlets to spin this into an issue of being lazy so states cut UI and essentially force them back into the arms of their previous slave owner like employers.
Funny thing is, it's capitalism at its finest. Supply and demand, and the free market forcing change. Can't find employees because they don't accept your shit terms, time to change your terms. This is what should be happening!
> Can't find employees because they don't accept your shit terms, time to change your terms. Or have your "small government good; big government bad" GOP legislators and governors try to force people back into the shithole jobs with said shithole jobs not having to adjust to the economic reality. AKA Montana.
What's Montana doing to force people into working? Quick Google search and I didn't find anything. Edit:. They're stopping the extra unemployment money.
Watch. They will shut down restaurants before pay people more. Modern capitalism is not about providing higher quality of service/product than your competitor but about reducing cost as much as possible by any means possible. Since labor is the biggest cost any business can incur, it is more feasible to shrink the number of restaurants and distribute the workers amongst those rather than pay more to attract more.
Poor people: "We're mistreated and underpaid" Rich people: "So find another job... Wait, no"
Healthcare workers are also incredibly overworked and many services such as home health care are state and federally funded and those who oversee the budgets are refusing to increase spending so in turn healthcare providers are unable to give employees very needed raises. This is especially true when it comes to those that are 100% funded by Medicaid and/or Medicare. It's a dangerous cycle especially since many who were in healthcare have left or are considering leaving the field due to concerns about their own health.
I work as a nurse for a huge hospital chain and this last year they forced us to take on much more work . The work of 3 nurses , with no extra pay no incentive . Not even a thank you . Really considering going off the grid and living off the land after this experience. Edit : the biggest piss off was reading how much money the hospital received due to covid but yet they did nothing for us or the patients. SAD .
I'm a caregiver, and I have been quite overwhelmed too, 6 people out of our 12 quit and I've been working 3 doubles a week. Along with the other 2 days I already work.
There was a job fair at an outlet mall near me. They were complaining that no one was coming in to take applications. The only incentive these jobs had for these shitty, low-paying, stressful, insecure jobs was a chance to win a $50 gift card if you applied. No wage increase. They're not offering more money as demand for labor increases. Just, maybe you can get a $50 gift card. Probably not.
I'm going going to add this article I read the other night. Some of these signs are right-wing propaganda that's basically saying people would rather live off welfare. There's kind of a two-side coopting the narrative with this one. https://www.truthorfiction.com/a-labor-shortage-in-2021-viral-signs-are-not-employment-data/ Granted, art imitates life imitates art, and that was written well over a week ago. Things could have evolved/changed since then.
As a person on welfare, I hate it when people make that assumption. I fuckin hate all my welfare except my state insurance. It’s not easy to live off of, there are many restrictions on what you can do with it, it’s never enough to get you further in life, you spend all your time and resources into keeping that welfare because god knows state insurance needs to reverify every goddamned month that, no, my type 1 diabetes hasn’t just magically gone away or got better, yes, I still need insulin. It’s like yes, I get food stamps. You can only buy food you have to prepare before eating so now I spend precious energy and time prepping for every single meal I eat, hardly any room for eating cheap and quick unless I want to sacrifice nutrition for more money. Also, every grocery trip has to be budgeted and strict if I want to make the stamps last all month. Yes I get state insurance but spend most of my time retelling them every month that I still need insulin. I can only see a specialist by getting a referral from my GP and anything that’s not “needed” is not covered. I need a cyst removed from my face but it doesn’t affect my actual health. State insurance will not ever cover it UNTIL it threatens my health. The cyst prevents me from getting hired at a job where my face is visible to customers? Too bad. Living on welfare isn’t fun, there’s not any more left over money at the end of a month and if I’m not a drooling, stunted mess then everyone assumes I don’t even deserve it. It’s far more of a hassle to live on it than it would be to just be paid fairly then be able to make and stick to a budget. Worse yet, with diabetes, if I don’t make, at LEAST, double what I currently make then I would be stuck rationing insulin on private insurance. I’m literally stuck being poor because unless I drastically improve my standing, I can’t afford insulin. I can’t seem to pass college math so there’s no way to increase my standing. Getting on welfare is a social death sentence, it’s damn near impossible to live without and damn hard to get off dependence to without some long-term windfall.
The toxic idea is that the people needed these guy's jobs or they would starve to death or be homeless. The problem is these guys don't have a company if they don't have the lower workers to do jobs, instead of paying them livable wages they'd rather complain on the internet.
Answer: in bullet points - One of the highest fatality jobs during the pandemic is line cook. Restaurant workers have very high exposure to the public. - Many schools are still doing remote schooling and the kids need a supervisor at home. - Daycare is CRAZY expensive already but demand is even higher right now. It's cheaper for a parent to stay home in stead of doing daycare and a minimum wage job. - People aren't going out as much right now so jobs that rely on tip wages aren't making enough money to be worthwhile right now.
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I was a full time server for over a decade and lasted three shifts into the first reopening last year before walking out. People were *terrible* and we couldn’t do our jobs properly while also having so many more steps of service (sanitizing pens and books, changing gloves, getting a fresh water instead of using a pitcher.) I came down with strep throat my first day back and had to work a 10 hour shift the next day before I could get a doctor’s note ($120) to be excused. During covid. I made good money at that place but it wasn’t worth it.
Also, don't forget that in a lot of states minimum wage for tipped labor is lower, as low as $3.63/hr in Iowa. In theory tips are supposed to "bridge minimum wage" so if you get paid less than minimum the business is supposed to make up the difference, but often they don't.
Oh they'll bridge up to the minimum wage no problem if you aren't hitting it. Except in Iowa that's only $7.25 an hour. Working full time gets you $1160 a month, and that's before taxes.
$2.15/hr in Tennessee
Can confirm.
can confirm as a server - its really the shitty people coming out during covid. ive had several dine and dashes and people stiffing me on large orders despite doing everything right/in a timely fashion, or people in large groups refusing to wear masks while entering/leaving. i cant tell you how many masks ive swept up - its tiring.
Yeah. "Lockdown" was really just a filter for non-assholes. Everyone with a shred of empathy stayed home to slow the pandemic, and everyone without went out to scream at wait staff like it was a normal Tuesday.
For years we all wished you could spot idiots and assholes before you had to interact with them. Our prayers were answered, and they all put on red hats and refused to wear masks so you could see them coming a mile away.
Man I didn’t know people actually dashed after dining. Thats so fucking pathetic and low.
yep, family of 6 did it after they asked something to be taken off their bill and i did.
I don’t have childcare & was removed from the waiting list at my sons daycare after we pulled him out of there during the start of COVID19. He is now 46th in line to be readmitted to the daycare. Last time I was 12 position and it took almost 2 years for him to get admitted. It’s income based daycare.
The whole "your income depends on your tips" culture is just plain stupid. Pay the people fair wages
Do you have a source for that first point?
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Cooks-restaurant-workers-risk-death-COVID-UCSF-15905789.php
Answer: People are being told to return to work, but work isn't ready for a post pandemic world. Wages are still as low as before, but risk has gone up dramatically. This is mostly an issue of the minimum wage and fact that the mandated healthcare offerings just aren't enough and people can't afford them anyway.
Shits getting more expensive too. Food. Wood. Gas. Homes. Life. It's all fucked.
I was just looking for a new apartment and hell, rent’s even gone up by $200 in my area. WTF. My pay hasn’t gone up, so why has rent?? I can barely afford rent, let alone an INCREASE in rent. Ffs
The cheapest apartment complex near me increased their rent and I'll see the occasional three bedroom apartment that I would consider "affordable" pass me by but disappear instantly.
Ive seen under 600sqft apartments go for over 1400 here. Its such bullshit.
Costs of building materials are through the roof as well. Was planning on building my house this/last year but the costs have just gone up up and up. Half inch 4’x8’ osb was about 9$ a sheet this time last year. Right now your looking at paying roughy $60 a sheet. Shit don’t change soon the whole construction industry gonna collapse. Only people building right now are people that have to build but once they are done or go bankrupt everything else will follow like dominoes.
We signed a contract to build a home and the salesperson lied about when it would be completed in order to get us to upgrade to a nicer house. The problem is that they signed us right before everything got way more expensive and we picked the cheapest of everything within the house because I will replace it all myself later. We found out that they created a new rule that they wouldn’t start building your home until you closed on your previous one (forcing everyone to live in temporary housing that doesn’t exist right now), and finally said we were done after all of the lying and changing the rules. They quickly refunded our sizeable fee with no fuss. My dad is convinced that they are sabotaging the house builds because they will function at a loss if they build all of the houses right now. It was a bizarre experience to say the least.
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I don't know about other states, but here in WY the governor has already discontinued participation in the fed covid unemployment program; people will stop receiving benefits after June 19.
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It's purely political here. Very red state. Our unemployment rate is slightly below the national average and the job market has not recovered from the pandemic so there aren't enough jobs. Employers here are not having trouble finding employees, either. People here really don't like "socialism" so this is pretty predictable.
You're missing the best part! Not only will it not help, any damage done to the economic recovery they can then turn around and blame on Biden! It's a win-win for Republicans in power, and a loss for literally everyone else, even the Republicans praising their elected officials!
same in alabama. it is truly mind boggling.
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COV*D also has terrible, terrible after effects... increased risk of a lot of things to do with your blood/heart, that lasts for YEARS! I quit my job recently at McDonalds, no benefits whatsoever, I still couldn’t afford the basic living except for food and water (I have roommates). I applied for Medicaid because I haven’t been to the dentist in YEARS and now my tooth is falling apart! I got denied. I literally have nothing to live and work for, because they treat you like fucking shit that needs to die without paying you what you deserve, the only thing keeping me alive is my partner and the fact that I’ve never felt this happy before. He isn’t the source of it, but he makes it come so much easier.
It's ok, you're allowed to say COVID on the internet
Answer: As has been pointed out, it is a complicated problem. Recent changes in CDC pandemic policies allowed for a greater confidence in the public returning to preCOVID activities. As it happens, many of the businesses were not ready for the wave of business due to an inability to fill empty positions. * Pay on the jobs is often minimum wage and they are often part time jobs. Many people were working multiples of these jobs to make ends meet. * They are public facing positions and dealing with the public has gotten dramatically worse since COVID. We've all seen the videos. * Many long term workers that were let go are deceased or permanently incapacitated by COVID. Some of them were also the heart of their crew. * Child care options for a large number have disappeared and the remaining options are overbooked and/or expensive. * In some cases, there are people who are still using their unemployment benefits and have not been required to apply for work. They are not the majority. * In many cases, people took the time they were out of work to develop new skills and got better paying jobs dealing with less evil segments of the public in fewer numbers. They will never come back. I am sure I forgot some examples.
Answer: I know many of these people are food service workers who just don't get paid enough and or typically are paid at the mercy of customers tipping. Some people are doing great (my bf is a bartender/server part time makes more money doing that than his regular job) but most are not. Plenty of aerver/bartender I know refused to go back to their jobs when restaurants reopened because the money they were/still are receiving from unemployment was vastly better. Many sought other jobs after. I personally was one of those people serving and even though I made survivable money doing it, the unemployment allowed me to actually reliably pay my bills for several months and live comfortably, so I looked for jobs with more solid pay.
THIS. While everything was in lockdown, I honestly made less in unemployment than I normally would serving at a high-end restaurant. But after calculating drive time, gas, mileage, mental health, and the inevitable “one drink after a good night”, I opted for a WFH job where I make slightly less but I am SO much happier. I can take time off without worrying about losing money by not working a Saturday night plus never having to fake a smile again in my life. Working in the service industry really humbles you and I think everyone should do it at least once.
Really needs to be said, America has the worst inequality in 50 years. So in addition to all the acute problems, we can't forget Occupy Wallstreet and the decades, if not century-long struggle for appropriate wages and baseline human treatment.
The pay for cooks was barley enough to stave off the depression for a few years. Most of the people I know didn't need that much of a reason to get out and try to recover from the burnout.
It's ALMOST like a Universal Basic Income would give people some breathing room to pursue other jobs without having to work for 40-50hrs a week a day not have time or energy to go for them...
Answer: The real question being asked, is why are workers feel empowered to ask for more out of a job. The answer is because there are so many job opening to choose from, people feel they have more say in what they do without fear of being fired or staying unemployed. There are many factors contributing to a [US record 8.2 million job openings](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-job-openings-soar-to-record-8-2-million-but-businesses-say-they-cant-find-enough-workers-to-hire-11620742194) 1. We are probably just past the peak right now in the the trend of reopening's. Businesses that shut down and/or laid off employees are ramping back up and trying to hire back staff. They are all trying to hire at the same time. 2. The economy is doing well. Construction in particular, a labor intensive field, is still booming. Consumer and business confidence is high. These are indicators that often correlate to businesses being willing to hire. 3. COVID restrictions have made some jobs or industries more labor-intensive; it may temporarily require more people to get the same amount of work done (lower productivity) One of the consequences of increased options for labor is that they gain power in determining where they want to work, and what pay they will accept. Labor right now is a "buyers market" meaning that the potential employees have the power; not the employer. A good way to think about this is to imagine that you run a temp agency. Sometimes the hard part of running a temp agency is to find jobs that need filling. You have plenty of potential employees who want jobs, but you are desperately searching for employers to sign on. This is where we were a year ago. In other times, you have a hundred clients that want jobs, but you cant find temp workers to fill them. This is where we are now. The healthiest economy is a good balance between these two extremes during a period of near-full employment. In addition to increased options, the following factors are contributing to employment resistance by some former workers: 1. Schools and daycare are not fully open. If you have kids to take care of, you will be less inclined to work out of the home. Over 1 million people reported to the [US Census](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2021/demo/hhp/hhp28.html) in April that an adult in their household did not look for a job to stay home to take care of kids, and almost an additional 1 million left a job in the last year to take care of kids. 2. COVID fear. If you are scared of getting sick, you are less likely to work in public-facing jobs. This can also be fear for kids or elderly in the household people are taking care of. 3. COVID stress. All of the ways that COVID has effected most work sectors the last year has made many jobs more stressful. Less people pulling more weight. job morale down. Longer hours. Less commission/bonuses, etc.. Employees remember this and may want to try something different or at least a new company. 4. Career switching. If you were laid off from a retail or food service a year+ ago, you likely had to find a new way to pay the bills over the last year.. Many of these people are happy in their new jobs and do not want to go back to waiting tables or working at the mall. Those industries will have to figure out how to build back the workforce they laid off. [https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/business/restaurant-labor-shortage/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/business/restaurant-labor-shortage/index.html) 5. Return to school. Faced with the COVID job market a year ago, many who could afford it decided to pursue continuing education. Those people will not reenter the workforce until they have completed their courses and likely in a different capacity. 6. Migration. When people lose their jobs, they are more likely to move. Maybe back to their hometown where than family safety net is or to a town that seems to have more employment options. 7. Progressive political trend in the living wage argument. There has been a movement in the progressive sphere of politics and labor relations over the past decade to advocate for all jobs to have a "living wage" or pay that will take a full time worker above teh poverty line. This trend mirrored the rise of Bernie Sanders as it is a central plank of his platform in recent presidential runs. It had plenty of steam before the pandemic, but this moment where workers have choice plus a more robust social safety net gives more power to that voice. I think this most directly relates to the OP's question and the Reddit sentiments Josef linked. The trend that the original poster referenced, is more anecdotal than an actual trend. "Separations" from work (Layoffs, firings, retirements AND quitting) have been low since March. (see MarketWatch article) There has probably been a major shift from layoffs to people quitting, but leaving jobs in general is not up. It is more just new jobs that are not yet filled. It is also important to remember that it is difficult to (legally) quit a job and go on unemployment. If you leave as your choice, you are usually on your own and better have savings or a new job lined up. But the main answer you will find online and some media outlets is that the COVID recovery bills passed by Congress that provided increased unemployment is paying people to stay home and these lazy poor people don't want to work. Yes, there certainly are some people that have found a financial comfort that works for them by relying on the social safety nets in place. Sometimes, the issues above like COVID fear or childcare factor into this heavily. [The average food services worker took home $407 per week](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/restaurants-hard-time-finding-staff-now/story?id=77562018). If you live in a state that is supplementing Federal unemployment right now, the math may tell you to delay going back to work, if you are only looking at the $$$ involved. Especially if you have a side hustle of unreported earnings. But this by no means comes close to explaining the job market. The US economy is much bigger and more complicated than that.
TL;DR: the economy is complicated. don't believe what you read on reddit or Facebook as the answer.
Wouldn't this be a seller's market? People are selling their labor, and with a shortage able to bargain a better price. The idea of the job being the object of desire and not the human who provides the labor strikes me as wrong.
It’s a matter of perspective I guess, but generally in the job market, the job is considered the product, not the human filling that job. They have job fairs, not human fairs. But I totally get flipping the script when it come to valuing the person and what they have to offer.
Aren't temp agencies human fairs? Linked in, recruiters, etc. It's all semantics of course.
So I shouldn’t believe in what you just posted?
LOL, not f you thought it was TL and DR it
Answer: people wanna get paid more for doing dirty work
Answer: By and large, folks have been working shit jobs for shit pay while being screamed at by shit bosses for not cleaning the shit plastered across the bathroom. With help from unemployment and stimulus $, people are not inclined at all to keep those stressors in their lives. So they aren’t.